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Under the Canopy
On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, former Minister of Natural Resources, Jerry Ouellette takes you along on the journey to see the places and meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and Under The Canopy.
Under the Canopy
Episode 95: The Royal Botanical Gardens - Where Science Meets Conservation
Strange wildlife encounters close to home can remind us of our complex relationship with the natural world. Jerry Ouellette opens this episode with a startling story about a raccoon that boldly entered his house by following his dog through the back door, leading to concerns about potential disease transmission and a late-night veterinary visit.
This unexpected encounter perfectly sets up our fascinating conversation with Dr. David Galbraith, Director of Science at the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG) in Hamilton, Ontario. Dr. Galbraith brings decades of expertise in wildlife biology to his role, having spent years researching turtle populations in Algonquin Park before joining RBG over 30 years ago. His insights on turtle longevity reveal the remarkable fact that some snapping turtles could easily be a century old—creatures that might have "said hi to Champlain as he paddled by."
The Royal Botanical Gardens itself emerges as a remarkable conservation success story spanning nearly a century. Founded through the vision of Thomas Baker McQuiston in the 1920s and granted royal designation by King George V in 1930, RBG now encompasses over 2,100 acres of diverse habitats. Dr. Galbraith details their innovative approaches to managing invasive species like carp and phragmites, including a pioneering "fish filter" system and creative use of old Christmas trees to create wetland berms. Their prairie restoration efforts, complete with controlled burns, demonstrate how careful management can bring back lost habitats and endangered species.
Beyond its scientific importance, RBG offers visitors a remarkable range of experiences throughout the seasons—from lilac gardens and woodland trails to winter exhibits and natural skating on Coots Paradise Marsh. At just an hour's drive from Toronto, this natural treasure provides both recreational opportunities and vital ecosystem services to the densely populated Golden Horseshoe region.
Ready to explore this natural wonder yourself? Visit rbg.ca to learn about upcoming events, seasonal blooms, and conservation projects that you can witness firsthand. Whether you're a passionate naturalist, a casual garden enthusiast, or simply seeking a peaceful retreat from urban life, the Royal Botanical Gardens offers a perfect blend of beauty, science, and natural inspiration.
Hi everybody. I'm Angelo Viola and I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's Favorite Fishing Show, but now we're hosting a podcast. That's right. Every Thursday, Ang and I will be right here in your ears bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Now, what are we going to talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know there's going to be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 4:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors From athletes.
Speaker 3:All the other guys would go golfing.
Speaker 5:Me and Garth and Turk and all the Russians would go fishing To scientists. But now that we're reforesting and laying things free.
Speaker 4:It's the perfect transmission environment for life.
Speaker 2:To chefs If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated, you will taste it.
Speaker 1:And whoever else will pick up the phone Wherever you are. Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside. Find us on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 6:As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal applications used by Indigenous peoples all over the globe. After nearly a decade of harvest use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. So join me today for another great episode, and hopefully we can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy Well. First of all, as always, we thank our listeners throughout Canada, the States, switzerland, trinidad, tobago, ghana, all around the world. We really appreciate your support and, as normal, any questions or any suggestions for shows, we'd be more than happy to take them. Just email us when it comes up and we'll see what we can do. Sometimes it takes a bit of time to get it on, but because we try to find the right person or the right information for what people are looking for, but we do what we can.
Speaker 6:Now I gotta tell you last night was interesting. So I get home, I get in the house and, as normal, the temperature is nice outside. So we got the back door open, the sliding door, and I got a screen door there that once upon a time the dog took full run from the living room right through and went right through the screen door. So the screen door it's kind of like the screen part is kind of hanging there Anyway. So I get in and Gunnar, my chocolate lab, he does as usual he runs over, he grabs his Kong, which is a rubber thing, that we put dog treats in. We did a show with Lawrence and talked about making dog treats. Some of Lawrence's dog treats and then a little bit of peanut butter. So he has to eat through it and I give it to him and he goes over to his corner spot where nobody can bug him. Didn't want to bug him when he's at the Kong.
Speaker 6:Anyways, all of a sudden something's going on. He's like terror right outside the back door, right through the screen, and I go, what is going on? I look and a raccoon has come right up to the door and kind of face to face with him and it's like what's going on here? So I call him off. He's very obedient, well trained, and I tell him to come back in. Guess who comes in the house behind the dog? The raccoon.
Speaker 6:So now I got a raccoon in the house trying to deal with that and I'm chasing the raccoon out of the house and it's kind of like kind of hissing at me and it's just like this was the strangest thing. So then I tried to get it to move on and it kept coming to me as if it was a. I don't know if it was somebody's pet that they let out, because it was like if I felt, if I had food in my hand and went to feed it, it would take it out of my hand and consume it right away and it would not leave. So I've got there and I'm trying to chase it away and get it out of the yard and it's kind of walking around, you know, with a hunchback and that sort of thing and just like, pretty much ignores me, just goes on its business. So, anyway, so I call animal control. Well, you know, we don't do anything like that, we don't deal with any of those kinds of things. And has there been cases of rabies in the area or anything like that that I need to worry about? No, no, no, we don't have any raccoon rabies in the area. Nothing reported there.
Speaker 6:And I said well, has there been incidents of distemper that you're aware of? Well, raccoons get a lot of distemper. So it could be, but no, they're not usually aggressive, they very shy away and that's not the character of something with distemper. Well, I can put you through to animal control. So go to animal control. Of course they close at 4.30, so this is after 4.30, and nobody there to talk to.
Speaker 6:So called my vet and talked to Dr Matt and couldn't get a real answer what to do. Everything else, you know, just make sure his vaccinations are up to date. And it could be this, could be that, can't tell you know and on and on. So anyway. So last night I called another one. We had a podcast on with somebody, and nine o'clock last night, guess who's going to get my dog vaccinated, an hour drive away. So I'm up getting them vaccinated and didn't get home till about 1130, but all looks good and doesn't appear to be problems at all. But I don't know what the gestation period of things like dust temper is. But we're watching to make sure everything's okay. And of course I'm boosting Gunnar's immune system with chaga. So he's been getting a dose of chaga to help out there and we'll see how it goes. But strangest thing to have this raccoon come follow him right into the house as if he wanted to play or something. And yeah, it was, it was. It was interesting, to say the least, anyways.
Speaker 6:So today we have a special guest, dr David Galbraith. Did I say it right, david? David, oh, that's fine, jerry. Okay, just checking to make sure. And David is with the Royal Botanical Gardens. Welcome to the program, david. Thank you so much, great to be here.
Speaker 6:Well, we appreciate you taking the time. I know you're busy and it's a very interesting location that I'm looking forward to talking about. But tell us a bit about yourself Where'd you go to school and where's your background, and things like that.
Speaker 7:Oh right, well, I grew up in Kitchener-Waterloo and had always been interested in biology and various things and I went to University of Guelph for my bachelor's degree and my master's A lot of different kinds of biology and then for my master's degree it was wildlife biology specifically. Oh really, yeah, I had amazing experiences with a professor who just passed away a couple of years back named Ron Brooks. He took me up to the wildlife research station in Algonquin Park the summer I graduated and had me working as a technician on his long-term study of the biology of snapping turtles. And once you get sort of up close and personal and getting into the scientific questions around these animals, they're just fascinating. So I did my master's degree trying to work out some information, some information about their populations, like how, how, how old, how old do they get, how long do they live and and how the populations function mathematically Right, which was pretty, pretty exciting.
Speaker 6:Well, I this is going to lead to some questions, david. Yeah, and the reason is is because last week we recorded with the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre Excellent and we had the vet. She's a vet veterinarian that works full time there and that was some of the questions I asked about how long do turtles live, and it wasn't really a defined answer and maybe you've got some. Your research was was that what your thesis was on for your master's, my master's?
Speaker 7:Well, um, it's absolutely difficult to know because they're not like we are as mammals that kind of have a life expectancy. Um, if they're, if they're not injured or get a disease or or something like that, um, most turtles will keep going. So for the snapping turtles we were looking at in Algonquin Park, some of the bigger individuals we thought could be easily a century old. We sometimes joke about them saying hi to Champlain as he paddled by. But it's just impossible to tell, unless you actually have an individual that you know when he hatched out or she hatched out. Everything's an estimate.
Speaker 7:Hmm, one of the mainstays in the lab was a biologist who went on to work with the Ministry of Natural Resources for many years as a lead bear biologist, dr Martin Obard.
Speaker 7:Right, but Marty was working on the same group of turtles and trying to really understand how, at the population level, reproduction works. So there are some basic patterns in wildlife biology that we see, with some animals having very few expensive babies, other animals having a lot of cheap babies, and turtles kind of have their own trajectory in there. They don't put a lot of energy into reproduction every year, but they do it for decades. They don't put a lot of energy into reproduction every year, but they do it for decades, right. So it was fascinating stuff. And then I came back to the same population for my PhD, but from Queen's University, oh yeah, and trying to come up again some interesting questions from a different direction, particularly trying to work out which male turtles were fathering babies in the population, and again it gets into some esoteric biology as to why that's interesting. But so I spent a lot of time with those turtles in Algonquin Park, that's for sure.
Speaker 6:Oh, yeah, well, Dr Sue Carstairs, she's the vet that works with the ontario turtle conservation center. Um, it was fascinating and basically it was kind of just like you said, it's difficult to determine the age of a lot of the turtles. And he also mentioned another individual, dr marty obart, who I worked with extensively when he did the polar bear research in ontario. Yes, yeah, and he was a leading polar bear researcher that I've been trying to track down but I can't seem to locate him to talk polar bears because I was up and actually when I was minister of natural resources, I virtually I don't know may have close to doubled his funding by.
Speaker 6:Actually, what happened was we made the ability for people to participate by going up and seeing and helping it, and they sold off those seats at fundraising dinners with Safari Club International, right, and I know in Ontario the seats were made available and they got about $15,000 just for the seat from the Ontario one to go. And then they took it to Safari Club International in, I think, their big convention I'm not sure where it is, in Vegas or in the States somewhere and they got a huge amount of funds there and part of the benefit to it was I found a way to make it tax deductible, so they paid $15,000 in the one case and it was was funneled actually I believe it was through Trent University and then the fund was transferred over and they got a tax receipt for it, which was a huge incentive to increase the funds. And anyways, the end result was a substantial amount of funds to help out with the polar bear research in Ontario, because most people don't know that we have polar bears and quite a substantial large population.
Speaker 7:Oh, that's fantastic. Fantastic to learn about, Jerry. Thank you.
Speaker 6:Yeah, sorry about that. It's just that you know these kind of topics lead into different areas. So it was interesting that you mentioned Marty and the turtles, and last week, here we are, dr Sue Carstairs, the Ontario Turtle Conservation Center. Okay, so now we're about. So you were born and raised in which area? Again, kitchener-waterloo. Yeah, okay. And so tell us about the Royal Botanical Gardens and where it's located and some of the history of it and how it all comes to be.
Speaker 7:Yeah, well, my place here is a little bit interesting too. I've been here over 30 years now and my current title is Director of Science, and what I've been working on here is a wide variety of things, and so maybe some of it will come up a little later. But RBG itself is an amazing place. We're a not-for-profit organization. We were actually formed up as a project of the city of Hamilton in the 1920s and 30s, right, uh, really, one person kind of ran with the idea, uh, that was Thomas Baker McQuiston, who was a provincial, or he was started out being a lawyer in Hamilton, and he was behind, uh, with some colleagues, a huge number of park building exercises or projects in the Hamilton area. They were really trying to transform Hamilton and make sure there were a lot of parks here, and they got the idea of having a big public garden, a big botanical garden here, and so we're located at the very western tip of lake ontario, um, part of it's in city of hamilton, part of it's in city of burlington.
Speaker 7:Today, because of of changes and boundaries and such and uh, the city of hamilton worked on the idea for many years, assembled land and started to build some gardens, and and uh forward the idea. Uh, and then finally, in 1941, rbg was created as a not-for-profit organization by the province through a private members bill, okay, and the land was transferred in ownership from the city of Hamilton and we've had that kind of status ever since. The property has grown we're now above 2,100 acres oh, that's good size 90% of which is nature sanctuary. So RBG owns large wetlands, the biggest being Coots Paradise Marsh in Hamilton. We own sections of Niagara, escarpment, forested areas, prairie habitat, so it's a mixed landscape. And then, of course, there's several very important large focal gardens as well. Oh, yeah, and from the name and from a lot of the things we do to have experiences here for the public, of course, the gardens are extremely important, right.
Speaker 6:So about roughly how far are you from Toronto, just so internationalists can kind of get a sense of the distance from Toronto.
Speaker 7:Yeah, we're about an hour's drive, as long as traffic is smooth on the QEW and the 403. We're about an hour's drive west of Toronto and also about an hour's drive west of Buffalo, new York as well.
Speaker 6:Okay, that gives a good sense for people listening. So you mentioned that RBG, royal Botanical Gardens, has wetlands in there. Yep, do you do any partnerships with the wetlands? And the reason I'm asking this is I'm going to be leading a little bit, because what happened was I happened to find I was at an event when I was elected I wasn't the minister at the time, this was prior to that and I was leaving the event and I said is anybody heading back to Queen's Park? So one person said actually the minister of the environment at that time said no, I'm not, but my driver is, and give you a ride, anyways. So I asked him.
Speaker 6:And this person was also in charge of a fund that was established by the Ministry of the Environment for rehabilitation of wetland areas or areas, aocs, areas of concern. And I said, oh yeah, I said, but I said, since the minister has changed positions, the staff inside have not been willing to work with us, so I have all these funds there and nothing to do. I said, oh really, I might know an organization that might be interested in partnering with you. If you're interested, tell me more. So I said well, look, ducks, unlimited. Canada has the matching funds where they bring funds up for the states for redevelopment of areas of concern or wetlands and things like that, and the end result was they had I think it was $5 million that Ducks Unlimited brought in $5 million from the states and paired it, matched it and they used that fund to develop lots of wetlands in the area. So hence the question are you pairing with anybody and have you looked at other organizations potentially to do some work with?
Speaker 7:Well, all the time and it's a great question we have a couple of very important restoration projects underway all the time here. Right, some of the biggest challenges on these wetlands are various invasive species. Oh, probably the focal one. For so many years here have been common carp. Oh, yes, these were introduced into Lake Ontario in the 19th century as a fish for food. Mm-hmm. In the 19th century as a fish for food because we had a native subspecies of Atlantic salmon in Lake Ontario and unfortunately by the end of the 19th century it was gone and people were always interested in the fishery and providing food. So someone thought, oh, let's put carp in the lake and they thrived. But unfortunately they like coming up into shallow waters when they're spawning and stir up the sediments with their tails, yep, and that chokes out the vegetation. So for over 50 years here there have been various attempts to get the carp under control and I know again, I don't have all of the history of all this at my fingertips, but I know that we had a partnership with Ducks Unlimited in the early 1990s.
Speaker 7:One of the so Coots, paradise Marsh, is a very shallow wetland. It's a couple of hundred acres in extent but it's only about a meter deep in a lot of places, and one of the things you can do in a big shallow wetland is cut off areas like little bays so that the invasive carp don't get in there and you let the vegetation regenerate in these local areas. And at the time, ducks Unlimited was very interested in that approach and we worked with them to create these areas that were protected from carp and vegetation was allowed to recover. And the way they did that was essentially by an enormous rubber tube called an aquadam. Okay, so imagine a gigantic old car inner tube full of water. You can set it up anywhere, you pump it full of water and now you've got a berm, you've got a separation in the wetland that protects the inner area from the carp. We tried that and this was just ending when I joined staff but unfortunately we ran into trouble with using that approach. We found a lot of people liked coming up to these big things and punching holes in them, so it didn't prove a practical approach. But what has happened subsequently?
Speaker 7:In RBG, along with a lot of partners in the federal and the provincial government and the local cities, created an interesting system that keeps carp out of the wetland most of the year. It's kind of like a giant fish filter Right. The wetland only has one attachment point to Lake Ontario through Hamilton Harbor, and it's narrow enough that we can put a. There's a permanent structure across it with what are essentially filters with a gap of about five centimeters. So anything smaller than that can move in and out of the wetland, yep, and anything larger than that gets captured and our staff are able to sort. Native fish are allowed to go in whichever direction they were trying to go, and the invasive carp and goldfish are sent back to Hamilton Harbor when they come in. And that's been in operation now since 1997 and has been pretty effective.
Speaker 6:I know Second Marsh in Oshawa had difficulty with carp in the Second Marsh as well, and they tried something and I don't know how successful it was and I'm not sure if you've heard of it or not but what they essentially did was they took old Christmas trees and made a berm in the same sense that you have a small section where access is controlled from Lake Ontario and did the same thing, utilizing Christmas trees to try and stop the carp from going through. And to be honest, I've never had any discussions nor found if it was very successful or not, but I know it was something new that they were trying to do exactly what you're doing. Not sure if you've heard of that or not.
Speaker 7:Well, we pioneered it here. Oh, did you? We started working with berms made of old Christmas trees around 1999. Yep, and we actually won an award in 2001 from the Ontario Solid Waste Management Association for the most innovative use of old Christmas trees. Oh, very good. So the idea is that the public can donate their Christmas trees in December after they've got the tinsel and the electrics off. Yep, and our staff will hogtie the trees between pilings and that makes another kind of filter.
Speaker 7:Water is able to move through. Animals like turtles can crawl up over the top and keep going, but large fish are prevented from moving through the system during the spawning season. Right, and we can control that. We can open it up, very interesting.
Speaker 7:So we've been doing that every year, rebuilding these berms in shallow areas that are too wide for the approach of this filter, the fishway. We've also found that these berms are highly effective in changing the course of the flow of water in the wetland. So we've been using in the past few years we've actually created a couple of these berms in Coots, paradise Marsh and in another wetland, the estuary of the Grindstone Creek, to help us direct water flow where we'd like it to go away, necessarily from more sensitive areas and out towards, for example, hamilton Harbor. Right, we get a lot of heavy surface flow during storm events and things like that, and we'd rather that water which picks up sediment and other things go out into the middle of the marsh and perhaps get out into Hamilton Harbor rather than going into the sensitive areas, and the Christmas trees seem to be perfect for this. Very good.
Speaker 6:Well, and did you ever imagine that we'd be talking about Christmas trees at your marshland, at the Royal Botanical Gardens?
Speaker 7:Well, I certainly would. I mean, one of my roles here is science communication, and we're really hoping more folks will become aware of the amazing work that this place has been doing over the years, and so I'm so grateful for the opportunity to chat on your podcast.
Speaker 6:Oh, we appreciate you coming Now. Are you familiar? Because when I was minister, one of the things that I did in your area was I was the minister responsible for protecting the Hermosa karst. Yes, and are you familiar with it? Have you done much work there at all?
Speaker 7:I haven't done work there. My efforts are all about RBG's lands, right, but any of these karst habitats are very rare in the province. Any of these karst habitats are very rare in the province and the Aramosa, which is up on the south side of Hamilton, is a wonderful sensitive habitat and it's great that it's there.
Speaker 6:Yeah, so, david, now one thing that I'm finding and a lot of people haven't and I'm looking at probably bringing Invasive Species Ontario on to talk about is are you familiar with what's happening with Phragmites? And I'm looking at probably bringing Invasive Species Ontario on to talk about is are you familiar with what's happening with Phragmites and the impact that it's having throughout the province? Are you having problems with it there at the botanical gardens?
Speaker 7:Yes, phragmites australis, or the common reed, is a plant that's been used by people for various landscaping purposes and it spreads very rapidly through a lot of tiny seed and it likes wetland areas, it likes getting into marshy areas and it sets up big stands of plants where there's nothing else except phragmites.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 7:And so we've been concerned about it on the RBG lands for a long time. We do have good ties into other organizations trying to deal with the same kind of problems. We're not trying to do things alone here, so we've been learning from other agencies invasive species councils and things like that and in a few places here we've been successful at removing patches of Phragmites. But it's the kind of thing that you have to do all the time to keep an eye on them.
Speaker 6:Yeah, well, maybe you can just so the listeners understand what we're talking about kind of describe it like the height of it. About kind of describe it like the height of it. It's kind of like a. It's an ornamental one where a lot of people will paint it or dye it and use it in winter bouquets or outside and those sort of things. But go ahead and kind of give us a breakdown of what it looks like.
Speaker 7:Yeah, well, it's a grass and it grows very tall, as you're suggesting. I think it's probably sort of in the 8, 9, 10-foot range and on the top of it there's often the flowers and seed head will look like a fluffy feather sticking up off of the top. So if you're driving along a roadside and you see this enormous bank of tall grass with fluffy stuff on it on the top of it, that's probably Phragmites. Yep, Yep, yeah.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I'm seeing it more and more and since I spoke with actually it was Tom Warden, who used to be the past president, well, as the president for Ducks Unlimited Canada and he was telling me they had some major problems but they worked with the Nature Conservancy of Canada to eliminate quite a bit of Phragmites in some of the properties that they were working with, and very successfully, according to Tom, which is good to hear. But yeah, the more I found out as soon as I found out about it. I see it everywhere now and it's hugely take, like you mentioned, takes over and moves in very effectively. But how does it affect? Are you familiar with how it affects the ecosystems or not? Or is it taking away from the cattails, bulrushes and that sort of things?
Speaker 7:Yeah, it has a. I think it has a kind of a particular kind of zone. It likes where the water is a certain depth. I'm not an expert so I'm only reflecting on what I picked up from those that are here. Yeah, but um, it likes spreading, um, I think it's. It's. It's at seeds, so the seeds spread. But it also spreads under the sediments with roots or rhizomes, so it spreads out and forms very dense clusters once. Once there's a big cluster of these plants in a wetland. There's nothing else in the cluster except Phragmites. Yeah, so some birds might be able to use it, but you know, wetland animals would have a very hard time moving through it. It's so dense and all the other plants are crowded out, right.
Speaker 6:Right, yeah, and I'm not familiar what may feed on them, like you mentioned some birds, but other than that, I don't know of much else that would feed on them. I know that you know, for example, wild rice. I've seen where moose and deer have gone in and consumed a lot of the wild rice in areas, but not so much with Phragmites, which I'm the more I see it's more like. Yeah, this appears to be a problem.
Speaker 7:Well, this is a challenge, and this is why plants like phragmites are invasive. Um, there's nobody here that eats them, right? It's a. It's a new arrival in the ecosystem, and until uh, herbivores, uh, insects or birds or mammals or anybody else have figured out how to make use of all this biomass that these plants are accumulating, it'll accumulate, right. So, whether it's a tree or an invasive plant of some kind or anything else, biologists call this being released from ecological control. So in the ecosystem normally, there's all kinds of things that will eat plants and be part of that food chain. But many of the plants that we bring over for ornamental purposes or landscaping purposes or other kinds of reasons too I don't want to single anybody out and many things that are invasive have come in accidentally. The challenge is that there's nothing that's used to eating them, so they're released from the control that they would have in their natural habitat, and that's certainly still the case with Phragmites, I think.
Speaker 6:Well, I know I did introduce a private member's bill that got the shipping industry extremely concerned and what it was was that any corporation that was found and to be responsible for introducing invasive species into Ontario was responsible for the cleanup and the cost for those cleanups and things like zebra mussels I think it was ontario hydro. Their intakes and their, their outtakes for their nuclear pants was something like 50 60 million dollars was the cost. And not only that, but I think it was one ship that came from scandinavia that was responsible for bringing in uh, it may have been the, the round goby, but I'm not sure which one and it could be identified to one ship because that was the only ship and it was the only place. And all of a sudden now they're everywhere in Ontario. So the shipping industry, they did not like this any way, shape or form. But I had a lot of buy-in. Actually I was asked to present before a US Senate committee on it in Michigan because they were very, very thought it was a great idea, although I wasn't so sure if it was more political grandstanding than actually trying to take care of a problem as I was trying to do. But they found it very interesting.
Speaker 6:But we get all these invasive species by design or intent coming in, sometimes, as you mentioned, for ornamental bases, such as purple loosestrife. That now is having huge impacts and we're now looking how do we manage it. Now it's here because it is becoming a global community and we're getting a lot of these things here, such as phragmites, that are taking over now yeah, yeah, well, I mean, it's a challenge and and uh, the purple loosestrife example is an interesting one.
Speaker 7:It started out as an ornamental plant, yep, and there was a federal research center in Manitoba that thought they had a sterile hybrid plant so it could be used in ornamental horticulture and wouldn't set seed. And unfortunately it did set seed. I did not know that. So when you start looking at some of these cases again, some of them are a complete accident in terms of something getting loose. Some of them were brought over intentionally, but nobody ever intended that they become invasive, right, and when you're dealing with these species, often there is a big economic aspect to their presence, whether that's the cost of cleaning up when they're loose or the damage they might do to industry or the landscape. Some of the famous ones are things like the emerald ash borer, the insect which has just really wiped out ash trees in Ontario. Yeah, again, no one intended for these things to get loose, but the consequences are severe.
Speaker 6:Well, I was minister when it and was the first one to report on it when it first arrived. Well, it probably arrived just before I became minister, but I was the one that ended up dealing with it, because it landed in the Windsor area. Oh, yes, and it came in uncontaminated skids from Asia, yeah, and that's where the eggs came in, and then they spread. So now all skids have to be decontaminated before they can be shipped and those sorts of things, or non-wood skids, in order to make sure things like that don't happen. But we're getting all kind of invasive species from yeah, there's been quite a few that are attacking a lot of the trees now.
Speaker 7:Yeah, and again, we have to understand that what we do as people has consequences, and we're a very important part of every ecosystem on the planet. We have an enormous capacity for good and change, and sometimes these things happen too, and we have to figure out how to deal with them.
Speaker 4:Back in 2016,. Frank and I had a vision To amass the single largest database of muskie angling education material anywhere in the world.
Speaker 2:Our dream was to harness the knowledge of this amazing community and share it with passionate anglers just like you.
Speaker 4:Thus the Ugly Pike podcast was born and quickly grew to become one of the top fishing podcasts in North America.
Speaker 2:Step into the world of angling adventures and embrace the thrill of the catch with the ugly pike podcast. Join us on our quest to understand what makes us different as anglers and to uncover what it takes to go after the infamous fish of 10 000 casts the ugly pike podcast isn't just about fishing.
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Speaker 6:And now it's time for another testimonial for Chaga Health and Wellness. Okay, we're here in Lindsay, ontario, with Rusty, who's up from California and visits us every year, and Rusty has been a faithful Chaga user for a long time. Rusty, maybe you can just tell us about your experience with Chaga.
Speaker 3:Well, I feel that it's had a significant impact on my health and well-being. I believe in what I'm doing. I think that Jerry is very knowledgeable on it. If he says something, I take that very seriously.
Speaker 3:He has spent most of his life in the health care field and certainly knows what he's talking about, and I like to be around people like that because that's what keeps me healthy. And I'm 80 now and I'm going to try to enjoy what I've created with the motorcycle and one thing or another, which will require that I live for at least another 10 years to get back what I've invested in my health and wellness.
Speaker 6:So you're seeing a big benefit from it an overall healthy environment and when you go back to California next month, you actually take quite a bit with you back to California, don't you?
Speaker 3:Oh yes, we're going to be there for eight months and we don't want to run out, so we take it back and we take it every day and you know, like I say, it's not a problem for me.
Speaker 6:Right, so how do you take it, rusty?
Speaker 3:I put a tablespoon or a teaspoon rather in my coffee each morning. Okay, when I brew the coffee, yeah, and I put it in as the coffee's brewing. I put that in with it.
Speaker 6:Oh, very good.
Speaker 3:And I put a little bit of cinnamon in with it too, right. And then I sweeten my coffee because, take the bitterness, a little bit of bitterness. I use a chaga and maple mix that you make up for those that want to be well and stay well. Okay.
Speaker 6:Well, thanks very much. We appreciate you taking the time and sharing your chaga experience with you, and we'll make sure you have a safe trip back to California.
Speaker 3:Sure enough, all right, okay, thank you, jerry. Yeah, thanks, rusty. Thanks, sir, my pleasure.
Speaker 6:We interrupt this program to bring you a special offer from Chaga Health and Wellness. To bring you a special offer from Chaga Health Wellness. If you've listened this far and you're still wondering about this strange mushroom that I keep talking about and whether you would benefit from it or not, I may have something of interest to you. To thank you for listening to the show, I'm going to make trying Chaga that much easier by giving you a dollar off all our Chaga products at checkout. All you have to do is head over to our website, chagahealthandwellnesscom, place a few items in the cart and check out with the code CANOPY C-A-N-O-P-Y. If you're new to Chaga, I'd highly recommend the regular Chaga tea. This comes with 15 tea bags per package and each bag gives you around five or six cups of tea. Hey, thanks for listening Back to the episode. So, david, I have an interesting question. At least I think it's interesting. How did the Royal Botanical Gardens get the royal designation?
Speaker 7:Wow, that's a great one and it is interesting. Gardens get the royal designation wow, that's a great one and it is interesting. Um, it, it comes, it comes out of a lot of um. I have to divert from talking about biology to talking about history for a minute. Yep, uh, rbg apparently was an idea of one guy, initially thomas baker mcqueston, and um, initially Thomas Baker McQuiston, and he was part of this park planning board, or the park board in the city of Hamilton in the 1920s and he went over to the UK for a few weeks one summer 1924, with some family members as a tour and he was already responsible for the creation of several big parks in the area, like Gage Park in Hamilton was one of his projects in the early 20s, and he went to Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, which is outside of London, and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh up in Scotland. And just the timing is such that everyone who's looked at his story believes that it must have happened then. But we think he had this light bulb over the head moment. I need one of these in Hamilton. Oh yeah, he was.
Speaker 7:He and his colleagues were very much around the creation of amenities in Hamilton and throughout Ontario. In 1934, he was elected to the provincial legislature and became a minister and they were all about what we would now call perhaps as town planning or civic development. But they thought that they could see that Hamilton was developing strongly with big industry as an important industrial center. But they also felt that the people living in the city needed access to green space. They needed parks to improve their lives and make livable in the city make it livable. And so he came back and by 1928, this board of park management was talking about Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton as a thing. Right. They were looking around for land that was available and in 1927, they were able to secure a fairly large patch of land on the south side of Cootes Paradise Marsh for two projects. Most of it became the first thing that was called Royal Botanical Gardens, but the other was 50 acres was set aside for the Hamilton campus of McMaster University. Mcmaster had been founded in Toronto in the 1880s and they were really keen on moving because they were finding it hard to kind of compete with U of T and they'd been courting Hamilton. And so the same deal that gave the first bit of land for RBG also gave rise to the first Hamilton campus for McMaster. So around 1929, this board of park management. They were preparing proposals and ideas and looking into what their idea could evolve into.
Speaker 7:And in the early 20th century if you wanted to call something royal in Ontario, certainly you had to be serious about it. You had to be serious about it. The expectation was that it would be with the approval of the if not the king, then somebody pretty high up in England around it. Right, many organizations that have a royal name have a charter or some other kind of formal relationship. I know some of them, for example, have to regularly reapply for the status of using the royal term. And in our case it's a little bit different. We went through the channels, or the city of Hamilton went through the channels. They asked the federal government of Canada for permission to use the name Royal Botanical Gardens for these gardens they were planning on building in Hamilton, because it was all still. It was all still proposal.
Speaker 6:Right.
Speaker 7:And in the spring of 1930, the Board of Park Management received word from the Secretary of State for External Affairs in Ottawa that the name was approved. Oh, so it's nothing more complicated really than an approval by King George V to go ahead and use the name was approved, so it's nothing more complicated really than an approval by King George V to go ahead and use the name.
Speaker 7:We don't have any other strong association with the British royal family or anything else like that. We're functionally a not-for-profit corporation that was created by an act of the province of Ontario following all this work by the city of Hamilton. So we use it, of course, as our name and I think we try to present a really excellent experience for folks who come and visit. But we don't have any other kind of designation per se except the use of the name.
Speaker 6:Interesting so David, any other kind of designation per se except the use of the name Interesting so David. What other sort of things happens at RBG? Is there research projects? Is there like, is there tours, people come in and see the facility, or is it just a kind of a walk around or it kind of gives us a lightness on what kind of happens there.
Speaker 7:Well, all kinds of things do happen. We really have sort of two faces to what we do. Two areas of our business. Really important and critical is people coming to have wonderful experiences in the gardens and in the nature sanctuaries themselves. We have five major garden areas here and we are always working very hard to put on events that would be interesting culinary events, cultural events so it's much more than simply coming to see a garden. We feel that people value experiences and so we focus on that and we're having some fantastic results with that.
Speaker 7:Even in the wintertime, when the gardens are, they're often open but not as much to see. For example, we put on an internal or an inside exhibit in the winter months. This past year was wonderful. We dressed up our main visitor center with all kinds of plants and displays related to Alice in Wonderland, called Alice in Bloomland, and the response from the public was marvelous. We had a very large number of people come out to experience the setup out to experience the setup. So the gardens are both in the city of Burlington, adjacent to our main building on Plains Road West in Burlington, and also in Hamilton. Our arboretum is in Hamilton, a big open space, and also the historic rock garden which is the oldest part of RBG that's operational as a garden it was finished around 1932 and quite a spectacular space. So there's always something to see in the gardens and in many cases there's programming or events to participate in.
Speaker 6:Interesting. So the Alice in Wonderland event did, did you have? Uh, do you know what Fly, as Scary is?
Speaker 7:I'm sorry, I don't know the name off the top.
Speaker 6:Um, it's a uh, uh, it's the magic mushroom. Oh, I see.
Speaker 7:I don't expect so.
Speaker 6:Uh, no, I would not, but um.
Speaker 7:I do a lot of family friendly here.
Speaker 6:The, the. I do a lot of, uh, mushroom shows. Uh, we do a lot of mushroom shows. We have a lot of mycologists on and we talk about a lot of those different aspects of what's out there and things like that. So I know Alice in Wonderland consumed one of the ones that was to make her larger, make her small sort of things.
Speaker 7:But interesting To make her large or make her small sort of things. But interesting, Well, we did have. I mean, there certainly were models of mushrooms as part of the landscaping interiors that were done here. It was certainly there, but we weren't drawing attention to mushrooms.
Speaker 6:David, do you know the? What's that video game, Donkey Kong?
Speaker 7:Oh, I'm aware of it, jared, I'm not really onto it.
Speaker 6:Okay, no, when it first came out out, that's the mushroom that uh donkey kong consumes as well. It's very, very uh, widely recognized. It's kind of a red mushroom with white dots on the cap. Yes, anyways, but that's another story. So this is how you gain funding uh, to, to fund everything that takes place there is is having events like this and people and alice in wonderland and stuff well, it's Well, it's one of the routes.
Speaker 7:I mean we're supported very strongly by the province of Ontario. We have a wonderful operating grant and support that helps us present all of this for the people of Ontario. We have municipal grants from the city of Hamilton and Halton region. We have municipal grants from the city of Hamilton and Halton region and together the government grants are about a third of our budget Right, and all the rest of it is self-generated revenue. So we have about 16,000 households who are members and their support is critical for us. We welcome about 400,000 people a year through the gardens and if they're not members they're paying for admission Right. But we have corporate grants, donations, earned revenue through things like renting our spaces out for conferences or other events. We do everything we can to earn and grow our revenue and that supports the good work that we do.
Speaker 6:Right. So which ministry, David, is that funds basically receive your funding from?
Speaker 7:I believe it's again. I'm sorry if I haven't got the name in front of me. That's okay, but it's tourism and culture.
Speaker 6:Oh, okay, and the only reason I ask that is because we've got a recording with the Ministry of the Environment coming up next week, so I thought I'd do a plug for you if it was environment but a tourism, yeah.
Speaker 7:We're more aligned to the cultural agencies and we're akin but not exactly the same status as the other agencies like the Royal Ontario Museum and Science North.
Speaker 6:Right.
Speaker 7:So we're kind of a relative.
Speaker 6:Okay, so and it seems I'm getting notice already I need to correct myself it wasn't Donkey Kong, it was Super Mario, where the mushroom was in. I'm already getting notice. Oh, you got the wrong one, wrong mushroom. Oh, no, wrong game, wrong video game where it was in.
Speaker 7:Yeah, Well, again, we do a lot. The people are also. We also get about 400,000 visitors a year on our nature trails Very good, and there get about 400 000 visitors a year on our nature trails very good, and uh, there's about 20 to 25 kilometers of trails here running through these nature sanctuaries. Uh and uh, our. Again, the primary thing for me is how, how well we're connecting the, the public and our audience with the kinds of things that we see here that are so exciting and engaging. For you know, kind of a biological nerd like myself, not everybody gets that or wants to see that kind of thing. So there's also lots of offerings culinary, artistic, cultural and it's always exciting to see these things happening.
Speaker 6:So, david, where do you draw your? Where do the people that attend? So, david, where do you draw your? Where do the people that attend? And I got to tell you on Tuesday last, two days ago, I was in Halliburton, ontario kind of like for the international listeners, about two hours kind of north north, pretty much north of Toronto, and there were some visitors from England and they were asking around. They said, look, before we go back, the one thing we want to do we want to see a bear, and I can't believe the number of tourists. I was in Bob Cajun and there's a place there that advertises in Germany and all these German people were there and they said the exact same thing when can we go to see bears?
Speaker 7:Well, that's a sore point for me, jerry, because I spent nine years doing field work in Algonquin Park and I never saw a bear. See, there you go. And then my friend Marty, who was a pathfinder doing this work on turtles in the same laboratory. Just before I was done he went off and became the bear biologist in the MNR. Yeah, yeah, so I hope they eventually saw their bears Down here. We're not known for our bears.
Speaker 6:No. So where are your visitors coming from? Do you kind of track that sort of thing?
Speaker 7:Yeah, well, we certainly do. It's really important to understand for an agency like this who's coming to visit, what they're expecting to see and how to cultivate that market, how to keep people interested. Absolutely, I don't have the numbers in front of me, that's okay. We have, I think, a drop primarily about an hour's drive in any direction from RBG itself, an hour's drive in any direction from RBG itself. So that's the GHTA, the Golden Horseshoe, toronto, mississauga, out to St Catharines and Niagara Falls and out to the west to Guelph and Kitchener-Waterloo. I think, if I remember the numbers, roughly about an hour's drive from RBG, there's about six and a half or seven million people.
Speaker 6:Oh, okay, so that's a good draw, there's a good draw.
Speaker 7:We certainly do get visitors from farther afield, sometimes in organized tours, right, and every bit of visitation is a wonderful thing. We welcome everyone.
Speaker 6:So if somebody were to attend, how much time would they be able to expect to be able to get a fulfilling experience at the Royal Botanical Gardens? Like, how much time are we looking for somebody to go in?
Speaker 7:It really depends on what specific things they're looking to do. We know that in visiting a large public garden, people are, I think, looking for an experience of about two to three hours. Right, and that's certainly possible here at RBG Center, where we have an indoor conservatory that is lovely year-round, but especially nice when it's wet and cold outside. And then across the street is our large garden area called the Gardens in Hendry Park, and this is about 15 acres of gardens that you can easily spend a couple of hours taking it all in. Oh yeah, and that's just one area. Then there's additional gardens the laking garden, the rock garden and the arboretum. If you're willing to move from site to site, because it does require transport, some of our gardens are three or four kilometers apart, just because of the scale of the whole landscape. Right, you can easily spend a day here. Oh, very good.
Speaker 6:And I hope some people do Very good. So you work on other things like prairie habitat and maybe you can just enlighten us on some of the things, and I've seen quite a bit of prairie work in some parts of the province, but you do quite a bit of work with prairie grasslands and things like that. Well, we do a bit.
Speaker 7:Prairie grasslands are really interesting. The province used to have several hundred square miles of prairie and it's not the kind of thing you think of. Ontario right away oh yeah, all the prairie in Ontario. You'd think about out west. Ontario right away oh yeah, all the prairie in Ontario, you'd think about out west. But over time most of that prairie landscape was converted into farmland and today there's only a tiny remnant of it.
Speaker 7:But prairie is particularly rich in biodiversity. There are some bird species, for example, that just love it, and so we decided some years ago we started doing this. Actually in 1997, was the first act of a prairie restoration burn. We decided to bring prairie back to our landscape, and so there's a couple of areas on the north and the south shore of Cootes Paradise Marsh where we've been actively converting old farmland that we own into more natural prairie. Oh yeah, and this is a long-term project that involves things like seeding plants that are natural to a prairie Probably the most prominent in our area are things like Canada goldenrod and then taking steps to remove the other plants that have accumulated over time, some of them invasive, some of them things like Kentucky bluegrass that were used previously when it was parkland and one of the main ways we do that is, every couple of years in these spaces, we undertake a controlled burn. Okay, so we will have some specialists come in and set a very quick, low-burning fire Right. That helps us manage the prairie. Mm-hmm, mm.
Speaker 6:Interesting. Yeah, now with the prairie, do you get species like are you familiar with the loggerhead shrike, mm-hmm, things like that that'll come along, so birders would see these sorts of things there, or that sort of thing.
Speaker 7:Or yeah, uh, loggerhead shrike has been seen, I think, um, one of the real prominent ones, on one of our habitats that's come back. Uh, is the bobbling okay, uh, which is also an endangered species, and uh, these habitats is kind of a, if you build it, they will come situation. Uh, we're not trying to to to plant those animals there or or, but, but if you have the habitat they'll, they'll show up yeah, I used to say bobolinks all over the time, 40 years, all over the place, but all the time.
Speaker 6:but I hardly see them at all anymore, like I used to, and I think part of the reason that is is the way the farming practices have taken place now because, uh, from if I remember correctly, they are ground nesters, if I believe, and just the way they harvest hay and things like that makes it difficult for them to find secure areas. But I'm far from an expert as a birder.
Speaker 7:Oh, and me too. There are some wonderful birders around here, but I'm well, as you know, a past turtle biologist.
Speaker 6:Very interesting, David. So what else sort of things can people, Eric, you can tell us about the Royal Botanical Gardens?
Speaker 7:Yeah, well, it's a fascinating place and it's very seasonal too. There's something here that's a little bit different every season. The prairie habitat areas are relatively small compared to our big wetlands and woodland areas. If you want to go for a walk in the woods, again, we're a fantastic place for that. People will go on to the wetland areas with canoes or kayaks from time to time, and that's also an activity that's pretty straightforward to do. We have a canoe and kayak launching site at Princess Point, for example. Seasonally, there's color in the forests In the wintertime, if it's a cold enough long enough winter. That big wetland called Coots Paradise Marsh is the biggest natural skating rink in the area. Oh, interesting, yeah, so again, it's just hard to encompass it all relatively quickly, but the garden areas are also a fantastic place throughout the year.
Speaker 7:Some of the gardens have very seasonal bloom periods.
Speaker 7:Right now we are in the spring bloom period and we've got really big collections of things like lilacs and, uh, magnolia and um, the collections were started uh, 50 or 60 years ago, Right, and now some of the plants that are in these collections, as far as we can tell, we are the only ones that are still growing them.
Speaker 7:So that's another really interesting aspect of being a botanical garden is protecting or preserving this endangered cultivated plant diversity. We don't necessarily think about plants as though they were kind of works of art culturally, but of course, for the horticultural plants someone bred them on purpose as though they were kind of works of art culturally. But of course, for the horticultural plants someone bred them on purpose and they come and go in their popularity in the commercial nursery trade. But there's lots of them that were beautiful plants and may have had scents and so on, and they're not interesting to the nursery trade anymore. But we still have some of them that were beautiful plants and may have had scents and so on, and they're not interesting to the nursery trade anymore, but we still have some of them here. So another really interesting aspect, and our big lilac garden is at its peak right now.
Speaker 6:Oh, so, david, can people buy plants at the Botanical Gardens?
Speaker 7:We have a limited I think we have a limited selection at different times of the year. We have a lovely gift shop here at the main center, right, but I'm not certain off the top of my head what might be available at any time.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and how about bees? Do you have hives there to help pollinate?
Speaker 7:We have had in the past. I'm not certain that we have them today. We don't do that sort of thing ourselves. We have them today. We don't do that sort of thing ourselves, but we have had partnerships with private apiarists who have had hives near our gardens at various times. I don't think there's one this year.
Speaker 6:Right, yeah, because I would think that with your contacts at Guelph you would have some good contacts. They've got a good research center there for bees, who we've had on a podcast in the past, but you know, just inquiring, so people we're giving them a sense of, okay, they show up, you can potentially buy some plants and things in your shop, that you have goods for sale there and other things.
Speaker 7:So, and giving people some ideas which is good and really the best place to find out what's happening here is our website, uh it. It is a way that you can see all the different garden areas, the natural areas, um under, uh, under kind of the page on events. You can see what's coming up because we keep that up to date all the time. Right, a lot of things are free to attend. For example, if you want to see the conservation work that we do in the wetland, people are very welcome to go and actually see this Coots Paradise Fishway in operation and the schedule is posted on the website. It's just rbgca. Okay, some of our experiences. You have to purchase tickets for Some of our experiences. You have to purchase tickets for Some of our culinary experiences or dance shows, musical events, but you can do that online on the website.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and you're supporting a good cause, and that's some of the things. These things just don't happen out of the goodness of the heart. There has to be. You know, you have to monitor, you have to maintain, you have to take care of all these things. You need to generate revenues to do that.
Speaker 7:Yes.
Speaker 6:So you mentioned about canoe and kayak launches. Do they rent them there for people to rent a canoe or kayak?
Speaker 7:I don't believe we're offering that service at this time, just wondering, yeah, yeah, it's something I believe we have done in the past and our folks who are responsible for developing our various business lines, I think, are looking at these kinds of things all the time. Right? But again, the best thing to do is to check what's listed on the website for what's available.
Speaker 6:Right, all right, okay, dave. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to be on the program. We really appreciate it. I found it very interesting and enlightening and, quite frankly, I have not been to the Royal Botanical Gardens, although I did have someone, mary Alice Peck, that used to work for me, that left and went to the Premier's office and then she went over there and spent a short period of time working with your people and I think it sounds like something that I very much enjoy. I know we have memberships at the zoo, toronto Zoo, and things like that, because we enjoy getting out for a couple of hours, and this might be something that we can add to it, to our desire to get out and enjoy some of those things. So, david, how can people get in touch with you to find out more information or find out more details about the Royal Botanical Gardens?
Speaker 7:Well, thank you First of all. Thank you, Gerry, and if you're coming out this way, get to Hamilton, drop me a line. That sounds good. Hamilton, drop me a line that sounds good. The best way is the website. It's just rbgca and that will give you an enormous amount of information about what's here, even maps of our trails. All that kind of stuff is online. In terms of getting in touch, there is a contact us form on the website and you can send in a question to our information desk and they will send that question off to whomever can help.
Speaker 6:Very good. Well, we appreciate that and it's something that our international listeners can add to their agenda when they come to Ontario to visit us and see things as significant, things like the Royal Botanical Gardens out Hamilton Way.
Speaker 7:We would look forward to it. Thank you, Gerry.
Speaker 6:Thank you, David. We really appreciate you taking the time and it's just something that we're learning something new and interesting about a lot of different aspects, whether it's wetlands or prairies or all the trails and everything else you offer at the Royal Botanical Gardens, and just some more information for people to better enjoy out there and enjoy things that are happening out there under the canopy. Thanks, David.
Speaker 7:You're very welcome, Jerry.
Speaker 5:How did a small town sheet metal mechanic come to build one of Canada's most iconic fishing lodges? I'm your host, Steve Niedzwiecki, and you'll find out about that and a whole lot more on the Outdoor Journal Radio Network's newest podcast, Diaries of a Lodge Owner. But this podcast will be more than that Diaries of a Lodge Owner. But this podcast will be more than that Every week on Diaries of a Lodge Owner, I'm going to introduce you to a ton of great people, share their stories of our trials, tribulations and inspirations, Learn and have plenty of laughs along the way.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile we're sitting there bobbing along trying to figure out how to catch a bass and we both decided one day we were going to be on television doing a fishing show my hands get sore a little bit when I'm reeling in all those bass in the summertime, but that's might be for more fishing than it was punching you so confidently?
Speaker 5:you said hey, pat have you ever eaten a drum? Find diaries of a lodge owner now on spotify, apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.